


Sing Your Soulmate Safe

by Celticas



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Carson's circus, M/M, Soul Bond, soulmate
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:56:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26911012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celticas/pseuds/Celticas
Summary: Most people get first words, some people get symbols, very few get a mental connection. Clint doesn’t get any of that. No scrawl of words or blossoming of colours on his skin. No errant thoughts intruding on and off until he finally meets that one person who is destined for him.Clint doesn’t get a soulmate. All he gets is a never-ending merry-go-round of songs in his head that Won’t. Fucking. Stop.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Comments: 25
Kudos: 105





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [out_there](https://archiveofourown.org/users/out_there/gifts), [misbegotten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misbegotten/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Every Love Song a Secret To Be Shared](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8548915) by [misbegotten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misbegotten/pseuds/misbegotten), [out_there](https://archiveofourown.org/users/out_there/pseuds/out_there). 



> So this was an idea that was sparked while I was doing the Clint/Coulson Remix 2020 but I felt it was a little too far removed from the original to use it for that event.

When he was seventeen, Clint was asked if he had always known he would end up alone, abandoned by everyone and hurting. He said yes. In the moment he believed it. He believed that his destiny was to end up alone, no matter how much he secretly longed for friends, family. But it was a lie.

Sitting on the rough wood of the sagging house’s porch, flecks of the peeling, greying paint stuck to the ragged ends of little Clint Barton’s clothes. He was feeling sad, not because of anything that had happened, just because. He didn’t understand it, but it fit with the song in his head. Swinging his legs he hummed to himself, mumbling the words to a song he had never heard.

“Yesterday… such an easy game… place to hide away… I believe in yesterday…” His feet were thumping against the brittle wood in time with the tune in his head.

“What’s that boy?” Harold Barton growled from behind him.

Clint jumped, his voice falling silent. He hadn’t known his Dad was home.

“No...nothing.” He muttered.

“Speak Up!” The large man’s fist connected with the side of the little boy’s head before he could answer.

The hit sent him flying, the other side of his head cracked on the railing

“Idiot.” Harold left Clint there, bleeding and unconscious.

Harold had never wanted to be a father. Never wanted a family, but his bitch of a soulmate, a scared rabbit of a woman had been stupider than the second one and fallen pregnant not just once but twice. He cursed the day his words had come in, her pleading for attention from a man she didn’t know, it was pitiful.

That was the first crack in Clint’s belief in a bright future. Waking up long after the sun had set, shivering and covered in his own blood with the sounds of the night muted that he questioned whether he wanted there to be a future if this was all there was in it.

= + =   
The second crack came a year later. They had had a class in school about soulmates. About how there were common and uncommon and rare soulmarks. How most people had words, the first words their soulmate would say to them. Those people were born with a black stain somewhere on their skin that would slowly shape themselves over years. The next most common were symbols, an image that represented their one true love, colours swirling across skin as if alive. Clint liked the idea of timers the best, a definite count down to that meeting that would change your life, but his wrist was bare. His teacher had whispered stories of other soulbonds, of marks appearing on another’s body, of a name scrawled above the heart, of errant thoughts that weren’t your own.

There were only two things that everybody shared, they were born with their bond and both ends of it were the same. If you had a name, so did your soulmate.

Sitting in the class of thirty-something enthralled second-graders, Clint had known he was different. Not just because he was older than his classmates, he had been held back his daddy’s taunts of stupid proving true, but because other than the shape of his daddy’s fists, nowhere on his skin was there a smudge of colour that shouldn’t be there. Every thought in his brain was his own.

He knew sitting in that too hot classroom that he was destined to be alone.

= + =

Like so many other afternoon’s Clint was sitting in the warm sunspot on the porch. Enjoying the quiet before his Dad’s rage filled the house again. He could just hear Barney throwing stones at the ancient oak tree only a few feet away. His brother’s stones were all hitting inside the circle he had carved into the bark.

The steady thump of the rock on wood faltered, drawing Clint’s attention. He had been turning the words of the most recent song over and over in his head. They were clearer since that day two years earlier when his Dad had beaten his hearing out of him. The words were sad, but angry. They felt like they vibrated in his head with an energy that wanted to get out. He thought they should be yelled rather than sung, he didn’t like yelling. His dad always yelled before he hit.

Looking up, the flash of red and blue told him what his brother was looking at. A police car had pulled into thier driveway.

The officers that got out of the car looked different from those that had come before. The others had been bored and uninstersted, they didn’t care about yet another domestic disturbance call even if the evidence of it was all over Clint, Barney, and Momma’s body.

These two were contained, but intense. Focused sharply on the two boys. Their uniforms were neater. A voice in the back of Clint’s head asked, would they finally help keep Dad from hurting them again?

“Good Afternoon. Are you Barney and Clinton Barton? We have some bad news boys.”

The words from the song screamed to renewed life in Clint’s head making it almost impossible to hear the officer. Barney yelling and trying to hit the officer broke through the sound he couldn’t hear.

= + =

Clint turned over on the too thin mattress in the too cold dorm room. The orphanage, he didn’t care that it was called a boy’s home it was an orphanage, always kept the rooms barely above freezing, trying to save money.

A new song had started. It had been playing for three days and it was making it hard to sleep. The twangy guitar and lyrics that were a lie wouldn’t leave him alone. He didn’t care how many people told him that America was the land of the free he didn’t buy it, no country that let a Dad beat his wife and kids, and eventually kill his wife and himself wasn’t a land of the free. It was a land of disinterest.

All the song was doing was convincing him he was never going to sign up for the army. The other boys talked about it, the only real option most of them had after leaving the orphanage. He wouldn’t! He wouldn’t fight for a country that didn’t care anything about him or his brother.

= + =

“Clint!” Barney hissed in a whisper at his younger brother’s hunched form. He knew the younger boy wasn’t asleep, he hadn’t thrown the blanket off as he twisted and turned in his sleep. It was a dead give away.

“Piss off Barney.” The mound of blankets hissed back.

Pulling blankets off the pile, he eventually uncovered his brother’s scruffy hair. “Get up!”

“No.”

“We have to go. Mr Finocchiaro has been in the bottle again.” Barney pushed Clint out of bed, sending him to the floor with a thump.

“Shit. Okay.” They both knew what came next and were over it.

Stuffing clothes and the few touchstones of the few good memories they had into backpacks that should have been full of school books but only had a few scraps of paper. Aside from the backpacks they only had enough they wanted to take with them to half-fill a small duffle bag that had seen better days.

The almost frozen rain bit into their skin where their clothes didn’t reach their wrists or ankles, two or three sizes too small and more appropriate for a mild spring day than the chill of a deep autumn night.

Clint didn’t know where they were going, he just followed Barney. Even the darkest shadows he could see his brother’s outline, never questioning his next step. He trusted Barney not to lead him wrong.

Feet frozen in his wet shoes, and stumbling on tired, shaking legs, he kept moving. 

  


= + =

The faded red, green, and white canvas sparked some of the curiosity in the world that had been beaten out of the Barton boys. Cautiously, Clint followed Barney into the depths of the circus performers camp. They garnered a few curious looks, but most of the people milling about ignored them.

Of all the songs he had ever heard in his brain, he thought the [song lyrics] one best fit the situation. He inched closer to Barney’s back until it was a struggle not the step on the older boy’s heels.

“Where’s the boss?” Barney stopped a passing man.

Every inch of the tall man’s skin except his face was covered in tattoos. Clint could see curling, licking flames racing up one arm and water flowing down the other. Vines curled around his neck, not enough of the design peaking out of his slightly too short pants was showing for Clint to be able to identify it.

“Blue trailer.” His voice was gruff, but not mean as he pointed at the largest of the trailers pulled into a messy circle around a central fire.

“Thanks.” Barney didn’t remember his manners, but Clint did the word shouted as he hurried to follow his brother.

A bark of laughter followed him. “No problem kid.”

Standing in front of the closed door of the boss’ trailer, the Barton boys hesitated. Clint because Barney did and Barney because he was second guessing being there. Rubbing a hand over his arm just above his arm, he drew in a deep breath and nocked.

“Who is it?” A man boomed from inside.

“Um, Barney Barton?” Barney called back.

They could hear someone moving about inside before a square of golden light fell on them as the door was wrenched open.

“You sure about that?” The man in the doorway asked.

“Yes?”

“You don’t sound sure.”

Clint liked the man’s smile. It was wide without being threatening.

“Um. I. what?” Barney stumbled, not sure what was expected at them.

The man chuckled.

“So you’re Barney. Who’s this?” His mirky green eyes moved to rest of Clint.

“Clint. My brother. He don’t speak much.” Barney introduced Clint.

Clint summoned a small smile, Barney told him his voice made him sound stupid since his hearing had been broken so he avoided talking.

“Welcome. Why are you here?” He shifted until he was lounging against the doorway, arms crossed across his chest.

“To work.”

“And am I gonna have your Momma beating down...” Turning his head to look around, Clint missed the rest of what he said. Barney would sort it out and the man didn’t seem to not want them there.

From the step of the trailer, Clint could see as many people milling about as he had fingers, maybe more but his numbers weren’t any better than his letters. Each of the people had something interesting to see though. The tattooed man had joined a woman almost as tall as he was but thin to the point of looking sick. She moved gracefully though, the multiple layers of blue fabric she was wearing moving around her like water. The next trailer over had a group of plastic chairs out front, three of them occupied. A woman barely bigger than Barney sitting between another woman only slightly bigger than her with long dark hair that Clint thought was black but couldn’t be sure in the pale moonlight, and a man with arms as big as Clint’s head.

“..ay attention.” Barney shoved him. Clint looking around to catch the end of the sentence.

“Sorry.” He muttered, quietly he thought but wasn’t sure. Barney didn’t glare at him for speaking though, so he thought he was fine.

“Come on. He’s gonna let us stay.” Tangling his finger’s in Clint’s shirt, he dragged his little brother behind him. He hadn’t made any attempt to let Clint keep up with him on the way here, but now they were, he wouldn’t let Clint stuff it up for them. Get them sent back to the orphanage or another foster home.

= + =

Deep breath in. Clint reminded himself. Drawing air in as he counted to seven, held it, and then let it out to another count of seven. He couldn’t count higher, and he couldn’t have drawn in more air anyway. On the third count of the exhale he released. The arrow seemed to move between atoms, slicing the air to land exactly where he wanted it to. 

He didn’t allow himself to smile in satisfaction or react in any other way. He just kept steadily breathing and knocked the next arrow. The green feathers of the fletching tickled his fingers where the callouses didn’t cover. It was a feeling he loved. A feeling of power and control. No one could hurt him when he had a bow in his hands.

Heat bloomed inside his chest, unlike anything he had ever felt before. For the first time since he had picked up a bow six months ago, Clint dropped it. Wood falling from lax fingers. Music swelled in his head. The soft patter of a drum and a piano, the lilting croon of a man’s voice. A wash of emotion followed, light and  _ love.  _ What the fuck? That wasn’t a feeling he had felt since years before his Mom had died. The music had always been a source of comfort even when it was roaringly mad, or deeply sad. He hated the happy burning in his chest for no reason that he could figure out. 

Stuffing his fingers in his ruined ears didn’t help, and neither did the beating Trickshot gave him for dropping the bow. The voice crooning about wise men, as if Clint knew any of those.

= + =

For months, the same song followed him. Snatches of music catching him off guard. Lyrics about a sea he had never seen, about love and trust that he didn’t believe in anymore. The song taunting him.

Gritting his teeth, he ignored it. Smiling a grimace to crowds of people every Friday night and twice on Saturday and Sunday. His callouses grew, and his body started to fill with the extra food being a headliner brought.

As his life in the limelight got better and eventually the song started to peter out into silence, his life outside the Big Top got worse again. The anonymity of being new to Carson’s long since worn off, and any affection his brother once held for him being chipped away each time Trickshot called on Clint instead of Barney.

Now he had to be careful of the dark between trailers, the shadowy corners that the visitors never saw. Barney had taken to lurking, waiting for Clint to risk the gloom. It was never anything that would impact Clint’s performances, Barney wasn’t so stupid that he would endanger the new golden boy, but he always made sure the beating stuck. He had learnt from their father well, his fists and feet hitting places where bruises wouldn’t be noticed or would be written off as boyhood injury.

Clint had thought he had been alone before. The first few weeks in the orphanage had felt like him against the world. Now, he knew how wrong he was. He hadn’t realised how wide a shadow his brother cast over him. He hadn’t realised how much he had relied on him. Now surrounded by more people than ever before in his life, he truly knew what it was to be alone.

For five years he had only been talking when he absolutely had to. Now the only sound he made was humming the snatches of song that floated through his head and only when he was alone. He was even walking silently, the crunch and shift of the ground beneath his feet reverberated up his legs made him choose his steps carefully. Only after making Sanna, one of the contortionists jump and ream him out for scaring her did he realise that stopping his feet crunching was having that effect. That didn’t mean he stopped. It was habit by that point

When he wasn’t in the glaring spotlight, performing for townies, he floated through the camp. A spectre amongst societies ghosts. He found he preferred it. Sitting on the top rung of the big top, he could watch the world go by below him for however long he wanted, no one to order him around.

He was apart from a community that had already set itself aside from everyone else.

= + =

Pain swept across his mind on a wave of a single guitar and two voices that pulled at something deep inside him. He hesitated. Sorrow stilling his hands. The arrow, when he did let it go, went wide. Hitting the very edge of the target he had been aiming for, the horse he was standing on had taken him too far out of alignment. He would have had to go through Krista to hit the bullseye and he liked the young girl. She was kind to the ‘deaf-dumb moron’.

A stone pinged him in the shoulder. A non-verbal reprimand. Any and every second of distraction was a tally he would collect in bruises later. The stone was just the start. Once Carson wasn’t around, it would be fists. If it was more than one a knife would come out. All in the name of practising the knife throwing versus bow and arrow routine. Of course.

Clint just would have run out of arrows before Trickshot ran out of knives.

Bone deep soul sucking sadness bit at his heels for the rest of the day. Cleaning out the horses’ stalls, it was a fight to keep the tears at bay. Waiting in line for dinner, hugging his bruised ribs, he had to bite his lip to keep the whimpers in. It was the first time the music had effected him so much. It was more than just humming a tune he had never heard but couldn’t get out of his head.

Clint huddled over his dinner, protecting it from being stolen or from Barney kicking it into the dirt. Hidden in the shadows, his sharp eyes tracked the movement of everyone in the space between the trailer circle and the back of the Big Top.

Something had kicked the hornets nest. Carson was huddled with his wife Bella, the fortune teller Celia, and the Strongman Trevor. The four of them were the heart and brains of the circus. Without any one of them, the place wouldn’t run.

They looked worried. Scared. Sad.

Clint let himself shrink further into the shadows, waiting for the shoe to kick. Standing on one of the crates the Big Top went into, Carson waved everyone to quiet. Too far away to read his lips, Clint watched the crowd instead. Reading them. The shock that morphed slowly into fear, or anger, or sadness. The emotions that had been ruling Clint’s day.

People began pealing off from the crowd. Some headed for the tent, others for the trailers. It was a pattern of movement he knew. They were striking camp, Leaving before they had even done any shows. Whatever was happening or had happened was big. Bigger than anything he could imagine.

= + =

Long days on the road followed. Whereas they normally stopped every hundred miles or so at a new town, they just kept driving. Countless towns flashed past the grate that Clint was lent against. The horses snuffling at feed, each other, and Clint as the boy sat unmoving. He still didn’t know what had caused the change in routine, but had figured out they were heading for their wintering grounds.

It was a hidden valley in the depths of the Galiuro Mountains in Arizona. Clint loved it. The rocky, craggy heights where he felt like he could touch the stars that rolled out across the velvet sky, undisturbed by city lights. The short days filled with dust and greenery as they tried new tricks and tested risky routines.

The problem was that it was two months early at least. The first snows wouldn’t fall for weeks and the cold that turned their customer’s fingers blue and kept them from coming to their shows wouldn’t set in for months.

Reaching the camp ground, the music had changed, slowly, from the bone deep sadness to a raging, fiery anger that burned warmth back into Clint’s chilled fingers. The music crashed through his head. For the first time there weren’t any words. It was just chaos of instruments fighting for dominance.

Throughout the long winter break the music dogged every step. The anger drove him on more than one occasion to climb all night to the highest peak he could find and just scream. Scream until it felt like his throat was ripping and the unending boiling anger was quieted for a little while.

As the first flowers began sending threads of colour through the winter grey and Carson started thinking about packing up and starting their next tour, the music was beginning to wegn. Exhausted determination replacing the anger.

Clint still didn’t know what had sparked it all. The music and the change in routine.

He never asked.


	2. Chapter 2

Clint’s life changed yet again in Wytheville, Virginia of all places. The circus was just starting to wake up on Saturday after their usual late night on the Friday show when the misty quiet was broken by flashing red and blue lights, and piercing sirens.

Unlike the rest of the camp’s sleepy inhabitants, Clint had been up for a while already. He liked being up before everyone else. The quiet didn’t change but the lack of movement that accompanied sounds he couldn’t hear was a nice change. It allowed his mind and eyes to rest and take in the soft light and sharp cut of branches and trees through the early fog or floating dust depending on where they were. He had seen the lights approaching for the last mile after the three police cars had turned off the main road, but stayed where he was. Nothing they did could be worse than things had been for him lately. Barney and Trickshot’s violence steadily ratcheting up.

If they realised he was underage and tried to take him he would go and then slip out of whatever hole they tried to drop him into. Maybe the next circus would be better. Or just living on the streets, away from the hell he couldn’t escape from.

Sharp eyes watched as an unlikely number of cops poured out of the cars. It was a more heavily armed version of the clown car gag. Clint grinned. He was imagining the clowns bristling with weapons getting caught on their tiny car when they tried to get out.

The grin died as he calculated their trajectory. Half of them were heading straight for the trailer that Clint shared with his brother, and the other half for Trickshot’s. Slowly wriggling back from the edge trailer he was lying on, he didn’t want to be spotted or see whatever was about to happen to his only remaining family and his so-called mentor.

Over head the sun was warming, burning off the mist. He stayed where he was until his skin was starting to feel crispy and too tight on his bones.

Finally, he climbed down. The camp looked almost exactly the same as it always did at midday on Saturday. The sideshow operators finishing tidying up the few things out of place in preparation for the afternoon crowds before the matinee and evening shows. Performers were stretching or starting on make-up, checking on animals and equipment. Rhythms of life Clint knew as well as his own heartbeat.

Trickshot and Barney were the only ones missing.

Creeping around the edges of the camp he picked up bits and pieces of conversations.

“...those guns…” Celeste whispered.

Clint looked away quickly from that one. He didn’t want to know about guns.

“Robbing houses!” Bella said to Mr Carson. “Could have gotten us all arrested.” He reeled her in, wrapping her smaller body up in a warm hug.

Clint had known about Trick and Barney’s night time adventures. Keeping out of their way had been his only goal. Worried about the beating they would give him if he did anything. He hadn’t thought about anything but himself. Didn’t think about how it would affect the rest of the circus. Bella was right, the cops could have just decided to take them all.

“We’ll pack up straight after the show on Sunday.” Carson assured her.

Normally they didn’t move until Monday or sometimes even Tuesday, their weekend pushed later compared to the rest of the world. They only moved Sunday when the town they were in weren’t particularly welcoming.

Clint hurried on, carefully keeping his eyes off anyone else. He didn’t want to see what they were saying. See if they were looking at him suspiciously, tarred with the same brush as his brother. 

For the next few days, he did his best to fade further into the shadows. Only stepping into the light for the three shows they still had to do in Wytheville before moving on. Hoping that the rest of them forgot he was related to Barney. It seemed to work. No one paid any more attention to him than normal, which was to say none. Loading the two plastic chairs and the crate he and Barney had used as a table, he crunched the gears to get the old behemoth moving. In the rearview mirror, he watched the lonely shape of Trick’s trailer left behind in the trampled field.

= + =

Clint hated himself for it, but he found he was glad Trickshot and Barney were gone. For the first time he could ever remember there wasn’t a patch of black or blue on his skin. No bruises or cuts to worry about hiding under his costume. He found himself tentatively smiling at the other people around him. He didn’t find friends, communication was too hard to make that possible, but he found companionship.

Kerry, Mr Carson’s daughter, smiled at him when he snuck in to help muck out the horses’ stalls. Celeste snuck him an extra dinner roll when it was her turn to cook. Little things that touched a warm finger to a part of himself that had been frozen for a long time.

Human kindness was a revelation and it fucken shouldn’t have been. Family shouldn’t beat on their sons or little brothers. Orphanages should notice when their charges are hurting. Mentores shouldn’t use knives.

Nothing in his life should be the way it was and as much as things were looking okay for the moment, he didn’t expect it to last. Each year he noticed fewer people in the crowds, one day maybe next year maybe in a decade Carson’s would close and he would be alone again. Without a mark or thoughts of someone else in his mind he didn’t even have that one person who was his to look forward to. At least he wasn’t worried about the cops that showed up to hassle them anymore. He wasn’t completely certain of the date but he knew he was past his eighteenth birthday. Well past.

Standing in the wings waiting for his queue, he let his eyes rove over the small crowd. Almost half of the seats were empty, at least it was the Sunday Matinee, last night had been closer to three quarters full. It still tightened the bands around his heart, stealing his breath. He couldn’t lose another home.

One person in the crowd in particular caught his attention. Bright blue eyes under hair starting to thin years before it should. He knew those eyes. They had captured his attention the night before. Sitting in the third row centre. First noticed in the middle of his set, they had been laser focused, following every tighten and release of muscles, every twitch of his eyes as he tracked his arrows, targets, and the other performed. He would be lying if he said he hadn’t emphasised his movements a little and noticed a responding darkening of the man’s eyes.

Now thought. Now they weren’t focused on any one thing. They ranged over the sun faded canvas, the rickets audience stands. Clint knew without knowing how, that every flaw and safety issue was being noticed and catalogued. For what purpose he didn’t know.

So focused on the stranger, he almost missed the flutter of purple fabric that was his queue. Releasing the arrow he had drawn, his broadhead caught the very edge of the cloth and pinned it perfectly to the centre of the giant post holding the big top up.

Every shot was perfect. He didn’t have to check or have anyone tell him after the show that it had been one of his best performances. He already knew it in his bones. Cantering out of the ring standing on the back of Seselis. He felt like he was fucking glowing with pride.

Even after settling Seselis into her stall, the grin on his face hadn’t weigned. Sliding easily through the shadows, they were still a second home to him, he wasn’t expecting the figure sitting properly in one of the chairs outside his trailer.

Back military straight, feet perfectly aligned, and hands crossed demurely in his lap he stood out against the chaos of the camp. His polished shoes and perfectly pressed suit weren’t even dust dulled or wrinkled from sitting in the stands for over an hour. Stopping in the last well of shadow before the bright shifting circle of light cast by the fairy lights strung between trailers. Taking the time to watch the stranger. 

Pietro and Nadia wandered past chattering at each other without pausing the let the other finish whatever they were saying. Clint barely knew their names, having a conversation with either of them was impossible. Not that Clint talked to anyone, or talked really… Anyway, as the brother and sister crossed the trampled grass they both threw suspicious looks at the new comer, but kept moving, not stopping to talk to him. The stranger kept a mild smile on his face and nodded a silent greeting at them.

He greeted every other person who walked by in the same unassuming way. Not once did he try and stop someone or fidget or even try and peer into the dark shadows to see the man watching him.

At some point lurking in the dark watching a random dude sit in a lawn chair would start to feel creepy, or so Clint assumed. It hadn’t happened yet. What  _ did _ happen, was that his stomach started to growl. He always waited to eat until after the show and that man was between himself and the plate Bella would have left on the small bench in his trailer.

The clench of hunger was what drove him into the light. Edging around the lawn to try and approach the man without being noticed.

“Good Evening.” The man greeted, his head turning to pin Clint to the spot.

For the first time since his daddy-dearest beat the hearing out of him, he wanted to know what someone’s voice sounded like. The soft warmth of his mama’s voice was a barely remembered sound and beyond that, he wouldn’t have been able to find words to describe any other sound if asked, not that anyone would. Ask that is. What? Oh, right. The guy sitting outside his house.

In lieu of breaking his seven years of silence, he continued to stare suspiciously at the interloper.

“Mr. Clinton Barton? Phil Coulson.” The man, Phil, stodd and offered him a hand.

Clint assumed he was meant to shake it, but he just switched from staring suspiciously at the man’s face to staring suspiciously at his hand. The callouses he could see were interesting. Gun, Clint thought. Probably pistol of some sort. Never held a bow, or the reins of a horse.

“Can we sit?” Phil asked, waving at the two rickety chairs after the silence had gotten awkward. Or so Clint assumed, no silence was awkward to him, he existed in perpetual silence. “I’m going to sit.” He was as good as his word, settling back into the chair that wobbled warningly under his weight.

Clint left him there, ducking into his cramped trailer. The food was exactly where he expected it to be. Grabbing it, a can of off-label coke, and a fork, he wedged himself against one of the grimy windows that would let him keep an eye on Phil.

Eating slower then he normally would, and then sipping at his drink, he watched the man. Watched as he continued to sit there unconcerned that the chair he was sitting on was flaking paint onto his expensive suit or that the grass area that would normally be teaming with people was deserted. Everyone was hiding, waiting to see what the Suit was doing here.

It seemed that he was here for Clint. And looked prepared to sit there all night. The quickest way to get rid of him was to go out and see what he wanted. He felt the door creak under his hand when he opened it. The sound had never concerned him before, now he sort of wished it didn’t exist, giving him the chance to sneak up on the other man and see what happened.

Phil said something, but Clint couldn’t see his face, only the movement of his jaw. Rather than sitting on the other seat like a normal person, he perched himself on the back, feet in the seat.

Blue eyes met his squarely. Assessing him as thoroughly as Clint was assessing him. A deeper understanding of all the people who had squirmed under his sharp eyes prompted a squirm of his own. He bit down on the urge.

“My name is Phil Coulson.” He introduced himself again. The difference this time was his hands flicking along with the words.

Clint assumed it was sign but had never bothered to learn. Maybe he should? That’s a thing people did, right? Normal people who couldn’t hear? They learnt sign language.

“I came to see the show.” He continued with the most redundant statement in the history of mankind. “I heard stories about the Greatest Marksman in the World.” He was still talking but didn’t seem to be getting to any sort of point. “How long have you been shooting?”

Did he just want to make small talk with the carny-freak?

Clint shrugged and held up a handful of fingers and shrugged again. He had lost count of the years but it couldn’t have been that many more than that.

Phil nods as if he understands everything that is running through Clint’s head. His lips pressed together made Clint think he was making a sound. “Do you enjoy it? The shooting?”

Clint nodded.

“And the crowds?”

He shrugged that time. 

“Have you always had such good aim?”

The questions didn’t seem to be leading to any sort of point, so Clint just continued to sit there and stare at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the moon rise over the big top. Phil had stopped asking questions but was still sitting there, watching him right back.

Eventually, one of Phil’s hands disappeared into the inside pocket of his jacket, emerging with a perfectly white rectangle of smooth cardstock between two fingers. “If you ever need anything.” He held it out to Clint.

It was a business card. What was he going to do with a business card? He didn’t have a phone to call the number on it, and even if he did he couldn’t exactly hold a conversation once he did. And writing a letter wasn’t on his to-do list, his handwriting was barely legible and he couldn’t spell past a second grade level.

He took it anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a few days late, I was in pain on friday.

Dodging at the last second, Clint cursed under his breath and kept running. The world had gone crazy between one breath and the next and he was not okay with it. Aliens. Fucking Aliens were coming out of a giant hole in the sky. Why did it have to be today? Any other day and he would have been safe in the dumpster of an apartment in Bed-stuy that had been the only thing he had been able to afford after Carson’s had finally run its course and disbanded just outside of New York. Being so close to the city he had heard so much about but never seen had been too big of a draw.

Working odd jobs had been getting him by for the last six months, it also took him all over the city that he was still learning. Today’s job had been a two week gig helping with some paving had been in Midtown. Had been, because last he’d seen the pretty pretty pavement he had been working on had been crushed underneath a giant alien whale.

After staring in horror filled awe for 2.5 seconds, he had done something monumentally stupid. Instead of running away like any sane person, like the thousands streaming past him, he had fought his way closer to the action. The case with his bow and quiver clutched in one hand as he considered doing something that was most likely going to get him killed. But at least it would be doing something right. Something better than anything he had done in his life. Something good enough that it might erase the stain of bad on the Barton family tree.

The push of people fighting their way away from the invading army began to lessen. The people either out of the area or in hiding. Moving quicker, he sprinted up flight after flight of stairs, heading for the roof of the tallest building in the area.

Slamming out into the bright sunlight, he blinked the glare away to see a battlefield from on high. A streak of red and gold boomed past a giant space whale following, trying to eat one of the most famous people on the planet. A fucking space whale. Trying to eat someone. Trying to eat Iron Man!

What was his life?

Nocking an arrow, he waited. Lining up the shot and sending a broadhead into the eye of the whale lumpering past. It twitched away from the pain, a minute movement that was exaggerated by the thing’s incredible size. A building finished the job. The whale floundering in pain, slamming itself into the building across from the one he was perched on.

Turning his attention to the next alien. Fucking aliens? Can you believe it? Cause, he was seeing it and he wasn’t believing it.

The music that had been almost absent for the last few years had come back with a vengeance at about the same time as the portal had opened over Stark’s tower, although he hadn’t noticed at the time. It was operatic, and booming. His head ringing with sound. Settling into the rhythm of the fight, he found himself loosing his shots in time with the music, breathing with the beat.

A distant part of himself recognised that his arms and shoulders were aching with the number of arrows he had sent whistling through the air to embed themselves between sheets of alien armour. The same part knew any other archer would have long emptied their quiver. Unwilling to stop to refill every ten seconds when he was practicing he loaded up his quiver with as many shafts as he could fit.

Even so, he knew he was on the last few and the aliens weren’t slowing down. Soon he would be as useless as the civilians who had run scared. Choosing his shots carefully, he took out one of the flying chariots seconds before it caught up with Iron Man, the last arrow sending the aliens into a fiery crash course with the asphalt.

Pulling a tight U-Turn, Tony Stark sent a jaunty salute his way. He waved his empty bow at the man in a return greeting. Finally, he dropped to the hot concrete all he could do was watch as the city he had chosen to make his home in was broken open.

Iron Man streaked away from the city, darting between buildings out over the harbour. Anyone watching the larger than life superhero might think that he was abandoning a fight he had no hope of winning. Clint didn’t though. For no reason he could point to, he was sure the billionaire was moving with a purpose. Moving towards something rather than away.

No longer focused on fighting, he could look beyond the action in the sky. Something was flicking around the steady stream of the alien army out of the portal. Lighting formed in a clear blue sky flashed over and over, hitting the thing flicking in and out of sight and then out again to sizzle another of the chariots out of existence.

On the ground a man in a light blue, skin tight uniform was gesturing at the police and firemen on the edges of the battle. Stopping to punch or send a metal disc slamming into the alien ground troops, before going back to ordering people around. Clint knew the uniform. Pages of comics rescued from trashcans, or in newspaper comic strips pasted on boarded up windows. Captain America. The first superhero. The World War II myth who had been lost decades ago.

The tiny spark of  _ child _ still inside him gasped in awe. The rest of him scoffed, it was propaganda. A lie built on older lies.

He thought there was another person fighting on the ground. A shadow moving through the bright daylight without a body to follow. A flash of hair lost in the chaos.

An inhuman roar echoed through the concrete forest that was Manhattan. Clint felt it in his bones, a thrum of sound that was so deep he wasn’t sure there was any sound associated with the feeling. Green fury crashed into the building Clint had already damaged with his first arrow. The giant clung to a piece of bared rebar, stopping to heave in lungfuls of air and assess their next move. A feral grin bared human teeth before they launched themselves of the building onto the back of a passing whale. Clint watched in awe, as they ripped one of the armour sheets of the back of the whale and slammed it into the top of the whale’s neck. The light went out of the alien’s eyes. The green giant must have severed the spinal cord.

Clint cheered him on. The thrum of another roar shivering up his legs.

Stark was back. A white cylinder on his back. Clint knew that shape. He thought everyone on the planet did. A missle. And by the size of it, twice as long as Iron Man, the damage it could do was devastating to imagine. He had seen pictures of those cities in Japan from World War II, he didn’t want to see New York looking like that. Stark was headed right for the portal. Forcing the missile up higher and higher. Pointing it at the home of the army doing their best to destroy Clint’s home.

Iron Man disappeared. Lost in the maelstrom around the portal.

Light flared so brightly from the other end of the universe, Clint had to look away. Shielding his eyes with both arms, he poked himself sharply in the ribs. It hurt but he didn’t uncover his eyes for a long minute. Edging the arms away, he allowed his eyelids to open a slit, testing the light. When he could see his own shadow, he turned back towards the portal.

It wasn’t there. 

The music in his head was still playing but it had quieted, a whisper compared to the earlier scream of sound.

All of the aliens that had still been fighting, hurting, killing, were still on the ground. Dead or incapacitated he wasn’t sure, but it gave them all a chance to breathe. To stare around themselves in fear and wonder.

Sitting on the edge of the roof, legs dangling dangerously, he watched. He wasn’t getting out of Manhattan anytime soon and he had zero interest in getting down amongst the chaos below. The small group of people who had been fighting gathered around the green giant, something cradled to its chest. Between arms and legs, Clint could see the shining red and gold of the Iron Man armour. Too still.

The rumbling roar shivered through his bones again and the armour jerked. Stark was alive. Clint released the breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. He liked what he had seen of the eccentric billionaire. He didn’t want him to die.

It wasn’t long before the small team left the destruction of the street behind. He watched them, a guardian angel bereft of his weapons. Time lost meaning for him. He didn’t know how long he had spent sending arrows into aliens. He couldn’t think of them as living breathing beings. He couldn’t think about the lives he had helped end. He didn’t know how long he had spent watching Iron Man and his team after his quiver had run dry. All he knew was that the sun wasn’t close to kissing the horizon.

The team was only gone for a few minutes before a new wave of people engulfed the destruction. Where the fighters had been colourful, red and gold, black and red, blue with streaks of red and white, and green with a purple that Clint approved of, the cleanup crew were a sea of identical black and white suits.

That didn’t seem the most practical work attire to Clint, but what did he know about alphabet soups other than they brought bad news. He pulled his legs up into a tailor’s seat, making sure his knees and toes weren’t visible from below. He could still see them, but they wouldn’t be able to see him, not unless they got into the buildings around him and even then his bow and empty quiver were out of sight. He would be just another gawker.

A pair of blue eyes stood out in the anonymous crowd. Eyes he recognised. Phil Coulson. The agent who had come to see him perform at Carson’s. They seemed to stab him. Sticking him to where he sat. He couldn’t look away, as much as he wanted to throw himself backward off the ledge onto the room, scoop up his gear and run. He couldn’t. A force he didn’t understand kept his overactive flight response from kicking in.

Breathing in and holding it before carefully letting it out, trying to convince his brain and his body that nothing was wrong, that they were at the range sending arrows perfectly down the lane.

It worked just long enough to get him moving. Tipping back, he executed a perfect backward roll over his left shoulder. Popping to his feet with his equipment in hand, he turned to run for the stairs and almost brained himself on an immovable metal wall that hadn’t been there last time he had checked.

They stood staring at each other for long awkward seconds. Without taking his eyes off the most advanced piece of tech on the planet, Clint tried to edge around the obstacle.

The scratched and dented face mask lifted up showing the goateed face of Tony Stark grinning insanely down at him. In reality, Clint was much taller than the other man, but the armour gave him an unfair advantage in the height department.

“Hiya Legolas.” The twist to Stark’s mouth suggested it wasn’t the first time he had said it.

Clint waved. A short twitch of his wrist that wouldn’t count as a greeting, anywhere really.

Twisting his hand, he flicked a two fingered salute and finished edging around him. He was rabbiting down the stairs before Stark could realise what he was going to do, let alone do anything to stop him.

The stairwell was dark and cool after the unending glare of the rooftop. He clattered down the stairs quickly. He was probably the only person left in the building. It was a spooky feeling. He had spent years alone, and alone in a crowd, but that was always in the dusty fields of far flung towns never in the city. When had anyone ever been alone in a skyscraper?

He didn’t like it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I accidentally uploaded chapter 3 a second time, so let's try this again.

The door at the bottom of the stairs opened into the glass and marble foyer of the building. Out the windows he could see the men in black. One in particular was pushing his way through his colleagues, looking right at Clint.

It was Phil.

Darting eyes landed on the door into the basement carpark. Sprinting to it, he could see Phil start to run in the reflection on the hundred highly polished marble surfaces.

Two flights of stairs ended in an empty doorway. A long room of concrete stretched out from the doorway, cars lined up neatly. Silent sentinels to Clint’s flight. They showed him glimpses of his pursuer, warped in the shaped metal. He could see him mouth moving, calling out to him, but the shapes were too distorted to understand. He guessed it was calls to stop, or slow down. Maybe his name.

A twining feeling called for him to stop. To face the man chasing him. No one had ever chased him before. He had followed others, but not the other way around. Every step he took it was harder to fight the urge to stop.

Growling at himself he stumbled to a stop beside a fancy Italian sportscar.

“Fuck!” He swore, slamming his fist into the too shiny metal. “What?” He shouted, turning his anger on Phil. The word was probably twisted and slurred beyond recognition. It was the first time he had spoken in the company of another person in this century.

“Hawkeye.” Phil stopped sharply, taking a step back at Clint’s explosion. His hands were up, weaponless. Showing he wasn’t a threat.

Clint didn’t believe that for a minute. The guy was a weapon unto himself.

Spinning his bow in front of himself like a staff. A barrier between himself and the other man. He wouldn’t speak again. It was up to Phil to talk.

“I just wanted to say good work.” Slowly, he started lowering his arms. He stopped when Clint glared, scoffing.

They were held awkwardly out at his side now, not up but also no down. The stillness of the carpark was a relief, his eyes weren’t trying to track a hundred people in the glare of midday. A pounding thud behind his eyes was starting to set in, too much sun and work, and not enough water taking it’s told. He was getting soft since leaving the circus.

“And re-iterate my offer from two years ago. If you ever need anything, call. Here, incase you lost the last one.” Moving carefully, Phil extracted a bright white card out of the same inner pocket as last time.

Holding still he offered the card. A white flag of peace, between them.

Edges brown-grey and soft as velvet from repeated handling, the original card was tucked securely in Clint’s wallet behind the fake id he was using. is own out of reach without the official documentation that proved who he was. The edges of it were grey-brown and soft with being handled often. On dark, cold night he had toyed with the idea of calling the man with the bright blue eyes. Eyes that softly asked Clint to trust. So different from the eyes Clint saw in most faces. Angry and demanding. Lying.He couldn’t get actual id without gaining access to all of those official documents proving he was who he said he was. 

Darting forward he snatched the card and ran, not waiting to see what Phil did.

= + =

The music stayed with him after the day that became known as the Battle of New York. Clint didn’t stay in New York. He loved the city. Had started to find a place there. But needed to leave. Needed to escape from the bright blue eyes that followed him into sleep and the itch between his shoulder blades that someone was watching him.

What was Stark’s role in it all? Thinking back on the two second interaction they had had, he realised interest and curiosity had been the main expressions on Stark’s face. Would the tech genius look for him to get the answers he wanted?

Every red-light camera, or smart phone became things to be weary of. Every time tourists pointed up at the streaks of red and gold of the Iron Man armour became moments of breathless tension.

It was too much.

A week after the battle, he packed up the two duffle bags of things he called his own and started walking. Heading south out of the city. To a soundtrack of tingling anticipation that never went away even as the song changed every few days, he walked.

Four days later just north of East Windsor he was able to hop a ride with a truck driver heading south to North Carolina. The guy had been delivering building supplies to the city and was returning home. Clint didn’t care where he was going or why, he was just happy to be getting away from the city.

Over the next month, he worked his way by foot and by hitchhiking down to Florida. He had never particularly liked the sunshine state. Few people wanted to go see a ragged circus when Disney World was just down the road.

Crossing from the Atlantic Coast to the Gulf of Mexico he somehow ended up in the tiny town of Cedar Key, with only one road in and a million ocean directions out, he wrangled a job washing dishes and wordlessly negotiated a place to sleep in exchange for looking after a luxury fishing boat owned by some city slicker that had bought it as a vanity piece and almost never used it.

His days were unlike anything he had lived before. People around town waved and nodded in greeting but never tried to get him to talk. They thought he was a vet suffering from PTSD and he didn’t try and dissuade them of the notion. The work was boring but easy, filling his days on the boat and his evenings in the steamy kitchen.

Days were humid and hot even as the year edged towards winter. Clint found he liked it, started thinking about learning a way to communicate with people better than his poorly spelt, barely legible chicken scratch.

He was almost tempted to say he had friends. Or at least people he spent time with in a friendly manner. People he liked. It was a revelation that he refused to look too closely at, afraid of what he would see in his history. He would have said he had friendly people before, the other performers in the circus after Barney had left. Now he knew better. He knew that friends didn’t barely tolerate your presence. They actually invited you places, wanted to spent time with you. Talked to you, even if you didn’t answer.

He wanted to answer.

Slinking into the tiny library that was smaller than the boat he was living on, he found a single book about American Sign Language. Sticking it under his jacket, he wandered a little more, picking up this book and that before wandering out again. He didn’t have the papers to get a library card.

A new piece fell into his daily rhythm, each morning before he went for his run, he spent some time going through the book. Carefully mimicking the signs on the pages. He didn’t know if they were right and he didn’t know if anyone in town could use them, but for the first time he was taking a step towards connecting with people again.

Autumn slipped into winter, the music sliding slowly back into the depths of his mind, barely there. Around Thanksgiving and Christmas it swelled back into life before fading again. Each time becomes less. By February it was gone again, leaving him only with the memories of sounds and lyrics that he hummed to himself as he worked. Mouth forming words that he wasn’t certain he was saying properly.

= + =

Spring was just starting to touch the city, months before the snows would melt up north, and Clint was wiping down the tables before the restaurant opened. Once patrons started turning up he would cloister himself in the back amongst the noise and steam of the kitchen. 

The bell tinkled above the door that should have been locked. Frantic, he glanced up and around. Intent on finding an escape. Guarded blue eyes locked him in place. Just like they had in New York six months ago. Just like they had in some long forgotten town three years ago.

“Mr Barton.” The man’s hands moved with his lips. Signing his name. Clint’s name.

He signed an awkward hello back.

They stood staring at each other across the down at the heels restaurant. Phil broke the eye contact.

“Please...run.”

His hands were still moving. Too fast and smooth for Clint to understand. He was too new at signing to follow both the signs and to read Phil’s lips. Trying to watch both made him miss it all.

 _Sorry?_ Hesitantly, he formed his hands into one of the first signs he had learnt. _Can’t sign._

Phil let his hands drop to his side. “Of course. Please don’t run.” He said making sure his words were properly formed without overly enunciating, or yelling which pulled peoples lips and faces into contortions that made it impossible to read them. He knew how to talk to someone hard of hearing.

 _Why not?_ He carefully signed, making sure his fingers were in the exact right position. He might only know a few signs and they were all clumsy but he could and would. Slowly, he was inching his way backward. There was a door out to the trash cans and then into the maze of canals where he could lose someone not familiar with the area, he had spent many a sleepless night mapping out the waterways in his memory. He didn’t want to leave Cedar Key but he would if he had to.

“You helped in New York.” Phil didn’t follow. Standing his ground in the middle of the empty restaurant. His hands still but held out from his side, signaling that he wasn’t holding or reaching for a weapon.

 _So?_ Clint thought. Taking another mini step back without saying anything.

“I am authorised to tell you, there is a standing offer of employment with SHIELD for you.” He withdrew a card from the same inside pocket he had used last time. He slid it onto a table in front of him and then moved backward, leaving it to Clint to decide if he wanted to take it. “I’ll be in town for a few days if you have any questions or you can call the numbers on that card” He nodded once, with a small smile, and left.

Once the door was properly closed behind the other man, Clint darted forward and out the card in with the first one. Glancing over it first, he saw it was almost exactly the same as the original, just with an extra word in front of Phil’s title and a second handwritten number on it to go with Phil’s own. The handwriting of the new number was different, not Phil’s. The sharpness of the letters made him question whether he wanted to meet the owner of the number.


	5. Chapter 5

Clint saw Phil again before the other man left town. Phil didn’t see him, but Hawkeye was once famed for his eyes. There weren’t that many places to stay in the town. After his shift, he circled around the block across from the tiny motel and climbed to the roof easily. It was past midnight and only one light was still on in the building across the road. Settling himself against a humming air conditioning unit, he waited and watched. A shadow moved across the light, whoever it was hazy behind the lacy curtains. 

Something deep inside Clint told him that the person he was watching was Phil. He wasn’t sure if he recognised the other man’s shape, or whether it was something else. IT didn’t really matter. What mattered was that he knew. He knew it was Phil moving in the small room, getting ready for bed. The light turned off and the curtains twitched a face appearing for a long second, checking the roads and buildings.

Clint melted further into the protective shadow of the aircon. No one would be able to see him. Not even with night vision or heat imaging.

The curtain twitched back into place and the stillness of sleep settled on the room he watched so carefully. Long into the night he watched. Hours after falling into darkness, a spark of light lit the room. Phil returned to the window, rubbing a weary hand over tired eyes.

A single trumpet played a solemn tune through Clint’s head. A second one joined it. A man’s sad voice rocked gently through his head.

Phil stood at the window for a long time, eyes staring at nothing in the slowly lessening darkness of the coming morning. Watching but not seeing and being watched but not knowing.

Just before the sun breached the horizon, Clint slipped unseen from his roof. His day would be long but he would have a few chances to catch a cat nap before his shift at the restaurant that night.

= + =

A few minutes before his shift was set to start, Clint darted in the back door of the restaurant and looped the apron over his head. Work was steady. It always was. He lost himself in the repetitive movement and overwhelming steam. Outside was muggy, the back of the kitchen was a sauna.

When his hand reached for the next pile of dishes to find an empty bench, he stepped away from the sink and felt like he could breath. Work well done satifying the itch seeing Phil had placed under his skin.

A finger tapped his shoulder.

Turning, he found himself face to face with Bill, the owner and chef.

“There’s only a couple’a tables left. There’s a plate waiting for you.”

Bill didn’t pay the best, but he fed his people well. A hot plate of gumbo and rice under a bowl was waiting as promised on the small table tucked between the register and the kitchen pass-through window. The draw of food was almost enough for him to ignore the rest of the restaurant. Almost.

Old Mr and Mrs Turner were at the cafe table at the front of the table, it had a beautiful view out the massive picture window of the harbour. They came in on the same day every week. His mind catalogued and dismissed them. Jeremy, a few years younger than Clint he caught catfish for a living and had been a dick to Clint on both occasions they had had reason to interact. Clint didn’t like him, but was confident he could take the other man. Not a threat.

The last occupied table wasn’t as easy to disregard. The slightly receding hairline and perfectly laundered suit in the 110% humidity could only be one person. What the fuck was he doing here?

Stomping over, he glared down at the seated man, he used his extra height and bulk to tower over him. “Leave me the fuck alone.” Clint didn’t know what he sounded like. It had been years since he talked and the words were probably an indistinguishable mess of vowels and consonants.

“I’m not here for you Mr Barton, this is the only restaurant to get dinner. I’ve said everything I came to say and will be leaving in the morning.” Phil looked up at him, forming his words carefully and signing along slowly.

Gotta give the deaf idiot every chance to understand. Clint thought unkindly. The voice sneering cruelly in his mind’s ear sounded like a combination of his brother and dad. Rather than embarrass himself by speaking further, he glared for another breath and then stalked off to find his own dinner, gone cold in his delay.

Bill watched him suspiciously when he returned to the kitchen. “Better not be hasslin’ my customers.” 

Nodding in understanding of the underlying message, that the moment he impacted Bill's business we would be out on his ass, he returned to work. A pile of dishes had built up over his break.

= + =

Clint returned to the roof just before sunrise the next morning. He was going to make sure Phil actually left and if he didn’t, Clint would. He would find somewhere no one would find him, even if he had to head south out of the US. He didn’t have much of an attachment to the country of his birth.

Dark navy of night was just starting to give way to a purple of dawn over the tree-tops of the Florida mainland when the light in the room he was watching flickered to life. Phil’s shadow moved in and out of the window soon after. He thought he was packing, but he wasn’t going anywhere until he was sure.

Following along as the Shield agent drove out of town wasn’t as easy as he had thought it had been. Outside of the three blocks of mainstreet, the buildings of the town were a significant distance from each other, forcing him back to the ground and have to try and keep up with the car.

Soon even the questionable cover of the small clapboard houses ran up. From his place in the shadow of the last house, the Perez’s a young family from Cuba, all he could do was watch as the bright red convertible disappeared along the long bridge back to civilization. Just maybe, the man was as good as his word and had actually left.

= + =

For two weeks Clint lived on eggshells, the strains of a dirge creeping through his thoughts ruffled his already unsettled nerves. Coulson had left, but was it safe to stay? He wasn’t sure, but he was finally building something of a life here.

He had even maybe made a friend.

A teenage girl had appeared in the restaurant one evening, expensive sunglasses holding her long black hair off her face. She had ignored everyone of them, but sharp eyes had followed Clint after he had eaten his dinner in the corner of the restaurant. Bill must have had a fight with his wife that morning, because he had grumbled and bitched and been extremely patronising when Clint hadn’t heard him tell him to take his break.

“Hi.” She was leaning against the edge of the boat when he clambered onto deck the next morning. Her hands had moved with her lips. It was a word he recognised in both languages.

“Hello.” He waved. From her cringe, he guessed he had been too loud. It had been a while.

“I’m K-arrow.” She introduced herself. Her words a little bit more tentative now they were out of the easy ‘hello-goodbye’ vocabulary.

“Hello K-arrow. I’m Clint.” He had only just learnt about the whole naming convention, and didn’t have anyone to name him. He also wasn’t comfortable naming himself. What was his name anymore? Was he Clint Barton, the lost little boy from Waverly, or the famous Circus performer Hawkeye, or the nameless archer from New York.

“You work at…?”

He wasn’t sure what she was trying to ask, he knew boat and it wasn’t anything like that, maybe restaurant?

“Food place?” He asked awkwardly.

“Yes. Food Place. Restaurant.” She repeated his words and then hers, over-enunciating the spoken word.

Cool new word without tripping over himself trying to learn from books he struggled to just read let alone follow. “Restaurant.” He repeated, he was better at hands-on learning.

She grinned beautifically at him.

She didn’t stay long that first day, but reappeared every day at about the same time, always with new words to practice with each other. He tried to spend a bit of time after his shift at the restaurant fumbling his way through the books from the library so that she wasn’t the only one with new words. For the first time in more than a decade he could actually talk to someone.

Life would have been good, bright and happy, except for the continuing funerial march his music had become. Convinced that the Suit wasn’t coming back, he relaxed back into life with it’s new twelve year old socialite dogging his steps.

He and Kate, he learnt her non-ASL name about a week after first meeting her, spent New Year’s together. Sitting on top of the restaurant, they watched the small party going on in the mainstreet of town. There were illegal fireworks and a lot of alcohol down below. Lemonade was as hard as it was getting on the roof. Because Clint didn’t feel like drinking, he rarely did, and as he had mentioned, Kate was like twelve. Or maybe sixteen. Whatever.

They weren’t talking, it was too dark for sign even though they were both getting pretty good at it, and the noise from below drowned out the tiny bit of hearing he sometimes had.

Suddenly Kate moved beside him, leaning precariously forward. Grabbing the back of her shirt to make sure she didn’t slip off the edge of the building to her death, he tried to see what had caught her attention. It took a second. A redhead holding a bottle of beer and chatting easily to Bill. She didn’t belong. She looked like she did, nothing really stood out about her, but a deep instinct told him she was dangerous.

“Back. Sit back.” He tugged her back until they weren’t visible from the street.

Slapping at him, he could see her lips moving but wasn’t sure what she was trying to say. Leaving her glaring in the shadow beside the door, he crept back to the edge and glanced down. The red head was still talking to Bill, but in the five minutes since he had last seen her, the level of her drink hadn’t changed. At a New Year’s party that wasn’t normal.

Grabbing Kate, carefully he wasn’t a brute, he hustled them down and out. Only back at the boat did he stop. A small figure was sitting on the thick wooden post the Fin and Tonic was moored to. Even without anything else to go on, he knew it was the red head. Gently, he pushed Kate behind him and palmed one of his ever present knives.

Danger curled around his ankles like a cat trying to lull you into a false sense of security before pouncing. She moved as if she slid between the very atoms of the air, nothing being displaced by her passing.

He let the knife drop fully into his hand.

Standing at her full height, she would be even shorter than Kate. “Good evening Mr Barton.” In the very corner of his eye he could see Kate signing what the other woman was saying. The redhead’s attention turned sharply from him to the teen. “Oh.” She stepped more fully into the light, allowing her face to emerge from the shadows.

She was more beautiful than he had thought. The sharp elegance of her body was softened by full lips and eyes that would have fit right in with those weird Japanese cartoons.

“You met a friend of mine recently.” She told him.

For no reason, the unassuming face of Phil the SHIELD agent flashed to mind. She couldn’t mean anyone else.

“Met is a strong word.”

“Not really.” She shrugged lazily. “I would say it is the perfect word. You met him but you stayed here?” Cocking her head, she examined him as if he was some alien creature she had found in the back of her closet.

“If I had known you people were going to keep annoying me. I wouldn’t have.” He was fairly sure she wasn’t going to kill him.

She looked at him quizzically, as if she didn’t understand what he meant. It was an expression he knew well, his trouble with some words making him hard to understand. That wasn’t why she was confused though. It was the meaning of his words that were tripping her up.

“Why do you think I am here?” She asked finally.

“I don’t know. Either to recruit me or kill me.” He shrugged, uncaring either way. It wasn’t like there was some shining purpose to his life. No great soulstory or magnificent purpose. He was a deaf kitchen hand in a tiny floridian backwater.

“No. I am here because you are my best friend’s soulmate.” She said it as if he should have known. As if it was the most obvious thing in the universe. As if he had a soulmate.

He stumbled back a half step. No. It wasn’t true. He hardened his stance and his heart. She was lying.

“You’re wrong.” He spoke with as much certainty as she had. “Whatever you think you know. You’re wrong. I don’t have a soulmate.” Turning, he gently pulled Kate with him.


	6. Chapter 6

He managed to avoid her for three days. Oh, he saw her around town. Unlike Coulson she didn’t try to blend in, didn’t try to pass herself off as a harmless business person. She was waiting outside the restaurant when he would have been heading to work the next day. He spotted her from a roof halfway across town, having already gotten Kate to call him in sick, he watched and waited as the red head waited for him and then left.

He tracked her to his boat. Mother fucker. And settled in to wait. All night apparently. From dusk until dawn she lurked like a creepy stalker.

The next few days fell into the same routine. After the third day he knew he had to confront her again or get fired and he couldn’t really afford to piss Bill off, not if he wanted to stay in Cedar Key, which he sort of did. He was as surprised as everyone else. Or at least anyone who knew him even marginally, and there weren’t many of those left and none of them here.

Fuck.

On the 4th day of the new year, he hunched his head into his shoulders against the wind that was whipping off the gulf. The added benefit of mostly hiding his face was great.

Not that it helped in the end.

“Barton.” She slid into step beside him halfway between the Fin and Tonic and the restaurant.

Scowling at her and the world in general, he kept walking. A headache had set in the night before and hadn’t let up. 99% of the time he loved his eyesight, he could see almost anything coming, but that other 1% was a bitch, too much information getting into his head, shoving too much in behind his eyes. With a few days of rest he would be fine, with the spies trying to double the population of his little town, there wasn’t much chance of that any time soon.

“Scary lady.” He greeted in return.

“Why are you in this backwater when your soulmate is in New York?” She asked again.

All ready annoyed from the pounding behind his eyes, he stopped and glared at her. “Get it through your head, I. Don’t. Have. A. Soulmate. And even if I did. Why should I move? Why should I change my entire life for some stranger? Why doesn’t he?” He growled looming over her threateningly.

“You do have a soulmate and it’s not like your life here has deep roots. I know your type Clinton Barton. And I know you were in New York only six months ago.” She didn’t back down, getting into his face just as much as he had gotten into hers. “But if you’re too chickenshit to do anything about it, that’s your loss.” Stepping back, she shrugged suddenly unconcerned about what he did. As if she hadn’t flown all the way down here just to try and talk him into moving back north.

= + =

He didn’t see her again. Not that night when he left work, or the next morning. He almost thought she had left, but the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end every hour of the day, and he wasn’t sleeping. Someone was watching him and he would bet his last dollar it was Phil’s friend the redhead.

He hated her. For dangling something he had once desperately wanted and managed to shove that want down into the deepest, darkest part of his soul. For stalking him just out of sight and setting every nerve he has to singing.

After work on the 8th day of the year he climbed onto the roof of the restaurant and waited. Lucky for her she didn’t make him wait long.

“Leave or I will make you.” He threatened.

“Try it.” She growled, apparently as done with him as he was with her.

They launched themselves at each other, for now just with feet and hands. No other weapons. It was a brutal, no holds-barred beating. She came out on top. Just. Both of them were bleeding and would be black and blue in the morning, but he wasn’t going to be walking well for a week and she could limp away without help.

“I’ll go.” She finally allowed. “But you won’t be able to run away from this forever. That’s not how this whole soulmate thing works.”

If he thought she was right about the soulmate thing, she would be right. No one out ran destiny. But she was wrong, so he could keep running as long as he fucking well wanted.

= + =

The next visitor to Cedar Key was the most obvious of them all. The man couldn’t walk into his local Starbucks without making a scene.

Tony Stark didn’t do subtle, nuanced, or quiet. He did obvious, large, and loud. On a stormy night, he swept into the restaurant louder than the thunder cracking overhead. Spotting Clint in the back he walked straight past Bill and grabbed him into a crushing hug before he realised what the shorter man intended and could duck away.

“Le’go’a’me!” Clint struggled against the surprisingly strong grip.

The grin on Tony’s face was shiteating. Stretching from ear to ear, Clint thought his head was about to split in two like a snake. It wasn’t a pretty image.

And the billionaire was off, talking a dime a dozen. People with normal hearing would struggle to understand him, Clint had a snowball’s chance in hell of following him. So he just let him talk. Standing in the middle of the steam filled kitchen, he watched bewildered as possibly the most famous man in the country talked at him.

The rest of the restaurant, staff and clients alike, were similarly confused. But at least enjoying the soundtrack to the night’s surprise dinner and a show. As enthralled as any audience Clint had ever performed for. It was a little annoying actually, he had spent years and pints of blood and bruises upon bruises getting that attention. All Stark had to do was walking into a room and start ranting.

Slowly he calmed down, the words drying out and an expectant look on his face.

“Well?” He asked when Clint just kept staring at him.

“Well what?” Clint asked, partly to fulfill the little shit that lived in his soul and partly because he didn’t actually know what Stark was expecting from him other than some sort of reaction.

“Well, do you want the job?”

“What job?” His little shit snickered.

“What what job?” Stark gaped at him. “The job I just offered you. As Head of Security at SI.” The last bit was said slower, carefully. “You’re deaf. And have no idea what I am talking about.” His hands started flicking, now he was talking too fast in two languages instead of one.

Annoyed, and tired of being the centre of attention for all the wrong reasons, he grabbed Stark’s hands, stilling them. “Slow down and enunciate.”

“My head of security has been poached.” He pouted. “And so I need a new one,” he brightened again, “I saw what you did in New York Merida and figure you would be perfect for it… So?”

“What?” Clint asked again, more confused now he knew what Stark had asked him. A job? Him? Fuck off.

“What what?” Stark asked again. Annoyed but also enjoying the chaos he was sowing.

“I have to work.” Clint settled on. Turning his back on the confusing man, he got back to washing dished, his eyes on his task so he could pretend he couldn’t see Stark floundering behind him.

The man wasn’t used to being turned down or ignored, it was character building. With all of his focus on cleaning dishes and putting them away, Clint was able to finish his shift without being accosted by any other fortune 500 superheroes. It also gave him time to think. Stark coming here to offer him a job that he was unqualified for based only on an alien invasion and a 30 second interaction 6 months ago didn’t make sense. What did make sense was SHIELD getting their lapdog to draw him out and then doing whatever it was they wanted with him once they had him with their grasp.

Fuck.

He was so over this. Over being hassled and mocked by these people. First the tease of a non-existent soulmate and now a job offer that sounded amazing but was so far out of reach it might as well have been on the moon? He was done.

Slipping out the back door, he grabbed his bow and quiver, taking precious seconds to string the bow. Ever since the redhead had kicked his ass, he had kept it close. Holding the weapon down at his side, out of sight, he strolled out into the street that would take him home.

Lounging against a silver sports car a block down from the restaurant, Stark was fiddling with a phone that Clint had never seen before.

“Hey Katniss!” Stark shoved the phone away before Clint could get a good look at it, straightening away from the car. “About that job, can you start Monday?”

It was Sunday, even if he was going to take the job, he would never be able to move his life back to New York in 12 hours.

Then it definitely wasn’t serious.

Drawing his bow, he swung it up until it was pointing almost at the billionaire. But to anyone else it would look like he was aiming it directly at the other man.

“You can tell SHIELD and any other of their little minions to leave. Me. Alone. The next one to turn up and try and get me back to New York for whatever it is they want, will be leaving with an arrow in their ass, and the one after that in a body bag. Got it?”

“I’m not with SHIELD. They're a bunch of lying liars who lie.” Stark scoffed.

“I don’t believe you.” He pulled the bow that last fraction of an inch that would send the arrow piercing through anything he wanted.

Stark saw the movement and was backpedalling as fast as he could, hands up. “Woah! Woah! Okay. Never mind. I know when I’m not wanted.”

“No you don’t.” Clint disagreed. “You only hear yes because no one has ever told you no. But I am. No. No to whatever game you are playing. No to your dodgy-ass job offer. Just no.”

“Geez…”

Whatever else Stark said was lost as he turned away, lips and hands obscured even to Clint. Without further argument, Stark slid into his obnoxious car and roared down the street.

His arm burnt as he slowly released the string. Slipping the arrow back into the quiver, he left his bow strung as he walked home.


	7. Chapter 7

The wet winter slides into the muggy spring without anyone else turning up on his doorstep. A few weeks into the new year, Kate had disappeared back to New York, start of school and whatnot. Sitting on the deck of the Fin and Tonic with a bottle of beer on his day off, he found he was lonely. For the first time he had a way of communicating with people, and for a little while he had had someone to communicate with. It was amazing and eye opening and the worst thing to ever happen to him.

He had been happy, happy-ish. Content at least. Having never known, or not remembering, anything different, he had been content with ghosting around the edges of the world. Never a part of it.

Now he was lonely. He knew the difference now.

Taking another swig of his beer, he closed his eyes and lent back, letting the sun burn away melancholy. Almost imperceptibly the deck shifted under him.

A man was climbing onto the boat. He was talking but Clint couldn’t see his lips through the glare off the water.

“What?” Shading his eyes, he could finally see the man and his lips.

“You Clint Barton?” The guy asked.

“Yeah?”

“Package. Sign here.” He held out a white wrapped box in one hand and a pad of paper and a pen in the other.

Scrawling his name on the line, he accepted the box and waved a distracted goodbye. Who would be sending him mail? Kate maybe?

But if it was Kate it would be an ASL book or arrows, the package was too small for either of those. Slicing the liberal amount of tape holding the cardboard together, he prised the lid off to find a pair of the slickest hearing aids he had ever seen. They weren’t the clunky ones he had seen a few times, picking one up he weighed it in his hand it was barely heavier than one of the feathers had cut up for his fletching.

Finding the on switch, he slipped it around and in his ear. The sound of the water slapping against the wood and fibreglass of the boat was deafening even with only one of the tiny machines in. Wrenching it out of his head he almost, almost threw it into the choppy waters of the gulf. Instead he dropped the offening item into the lid of the box it had arrived in and turned his attention back to the rest of the box.

Under the second ‘aid there was a note folded with his name in spikey grease pencil. For no reason he can figure, Tony Stark comes to mind. The too… everything… genius who somehow knew his name.

Flipping it open, he read the short message.

_ Here. Have fun _

_ Let me know if there I need to make any changes _

_ How’s the voice control? _

What. The. Actual. Fuck?

Who put voice control in a fucking hearing aid? It must be Stark, the crazy motherfucker.

Pouting he glared at the hearing aids. Voice control? So cool. Something that stupid shouldn’t be that cool.

Fiddling with the aid he sighed and put it back in. The screech of a bird and the shush of the water was over whelming.

“Too Loud.” He said, his voice a thunderclap. Is that what he sounded like? He sounded stupid. But it worked. The sound lessened, but was still too much. “Volume down. Volume down. Volume down.” Each time it became more and more bearable. Just over silent, he left it, letting his ear get used to sound. He put the second one in and went through the volume process again.

Re-taking his seat, he sat back and closed his eyes. Letting his mind reach out and  _ hear _ . What was that sound? It sounded like metal tasted, sharp and a little bitter. Or that one? A not quite continuous wave. Was it the water or the wind?

When he blinked his eyes open, the sun was setting, a chill was starting to gather on the wind, and his ears and brain were aching.

Each day for an hour or two he put the aids in and just listened to the world around him. Slowly over weeks he turned the volume up and started venturing into town with them on. The way the sounds fit with the movement of their lips was about what he had expected. The songs that had danced through his head for years giving him some insight into the shape of the words.

He still didn’t like how he sounded. Dull and echoey in a way that couldn’t be natural. The summer tourists were starting to trickle in when he finally got his courage up enough to try speaking to someone other than his mirror.

“Bill? Can I swap my day off with Terry?” He shoved his hands into his pockets so no one could see them shake.

Bill gaped at him. Nodding dumbly.

“Thanks.” He thought the ‘s’ was too long, but that’s okay.

With a small grin, he turned and left. He didn’t actually want to swap shifts. Or at least he didn’t care, it wasn’t like he had anywhere to be, but he had asked. With his voice. The grin stuck around for days.

Tentatively he started talking to other people. Said hello to the librarian, Rose of the corgi and the massive cat that reminded Clint of Leo the Lion for Carson’s. Asked for a recipe suggestion from Jim who bagged the groceries. He also made all of the pre-made meals in the deli section so Clint figure he would be a good bet.

The townies eyes him wearily but answered. 

= + =

Kate arrived back in town in a cloud of perfume and swear words. For a rich girl she had quite the mouth on her.

Swearing back with a hello, how’s it going? Thrown in ground the tirade to a stunned halt.

“Wha…”

He grinned in triumph.

“Well, that’s not natural.” She waved a sarcastic finger at his face. “That grin is the devil’s work.” She smirked at him as his grin turned to a pout.

“That’s not nice.” He said, signing along with it. He hadn’t stopped practicing in the five months since they had seen each other last. The aids could break or get lost or just stop working. Better to get better at the ASL just in case. And it was fun. Almost a secret language.

“That would be because I’m not nice.” Moving past him, she dropped into the deck chair he had been lounging in before she had turned up.

“Brat.” He grabbed a can of lemonade and lightly donked her on the side of the head with it.

“Thanks old man.” They lapsed into comfortable silence as they basked in the easy energy that had always been their friendship. “Where did they come from?” She asked eventually.

Suck it, he won. She broke the silence first.

“Stark.” He said easily. The word hanging between them.

“Bullshit.” It was a bullet’s retort. Her breath shooting the sound from between her lips.

“No bullshit. Stark made them, get this, For Me. He turned up a couple of weeks after you left. Trying to get me to New York for those SHIELD fuckers. Anyway, he left and then a month later these turned up.” He waved a lazy hand at his ear.

“So you stole them.”

“Just ask Bill.” He wasn’t going to defend himself when the truth was so unbelievable.

= + =

For six weeks, Kate hung out on the Fin and Tonic and went on day trips to Disneyland and Miami beach. Swanning her way up and down the Floridian coast. On her last night in Cedar Key, she and Clint set up an archery competition on the beach, with half the town turning up to cheer one or the other of them on.

It was a tie, and Clint only had to give up a few shots. It was closer than his ego was comfortable with, but the pride that swelled in him for Katie-kate overshadowed the uglier parts of his mind. With a bit more work she would easily be better than him.

Scared and amazing he crushed her to his chest early the next morning, unwilling to let her go until he absolutely had to.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back in no time. Or you could come to New York? Visit maybe.” Her smile was small and hesitant. 

It was the first request for him to come back to New York that he actually wanted to say yes to. And he knew Kate had no links back to SHIELD and it was a genuine wish to spend more time with him.

“I can’t.” He whispered regretfully. His hands adding an  _ I’m sorry _ .

“I know.” She said, as her hands told him it was okay. “See you at Christmas.”


	8. Chapter 8

Life was easier after Kate left. The community were used to his halting, awkward voice and after their display on the beach, the highschool sports coach approached him about setting up an afternoon archery club.

It was the closest he had ever come to acceptance. He treasured it, but didn’t trust it would last. The circus had almost gotten there but even there he was on the outside, unable to communicate and only having the music in his mind to comfort him.

The music was quieter these days, not as sad. More thoughtful maybe? A low orchestral sound that Clint could barely hear over the sudden influx of noise the hearing aids had given him. On a quiet night a week after the successful launch of Cedar Key’s newest extracurricular activity, he was once again sat on the deck of the Fin and Tonic with a beer in hand that had wasn’t really drinking, and turned his mind inward.

Having always been a part of his inner soundtrack, the music that rarely seemed to have any link to what was going on around him. The songs were ones he should have known and a part of him had always just thought they were things his own mind had made up from the tiny bit he could hear, bites of sound and voice being woven together to fill the void hearing filled in other people’s heads. 

Except that wasn’t right.

He still had the music and had even realised some of the music was real, not something his mind had made up. That morning he had always given Sarah a heart attack when he had frozen in the middle of the street because someone had been playing one of his songs. It wasn’t exactly the same, a different voice was singing the words that had haunted him on that soul destroying day that New York fell for the first time.

A voice crooning about walking through dreams alone. But it wasn’t the voice he knew, a deeper rasp and purity rang through the sound than in the version that had circled through his head for weeks.

So here he was, for the first time in his twenty-five odd years of shitty life, really thinking about the one thing that had tethered him to the world when everything else might as well have been in flames. Focusing on it brought it to booming life in his ears.

“I know you’re hurt too, but what else can we do, tormented and torn apart?” 

The lyrics hurt in a way he wasn’t expecting. There was a rawness to the voice calling to him, reassuring but sad.

“And what would you say if I called on you now and said that I can’t hold on?”

It was too much.

Turning away from the music, he let it drift back to the shadowed depths where it normally wound around his almost subconscious thoughts.

= + =

Nothing he did kept the music from intruding on his thoughts now that he had let it in. He found himself humming along to the gut wrenching music at the oddest times.

Standing in the steam of the kitchen, elbow deep in sudsy water, he was humming without noticing, the words starting to come out along with the notes. “I'm all out of love, what am I without you? I can't be too late to say that I was so wrong.”

Only two out of three words managed to get from his mind to his mouth.

“Why are you butchering Airsupply?” Bill asked, more curious than annoyed by this newest behaviour.

“Airsupply? I don’t…” Clint stumbled over the question.

“All out of love. The song you were just… singing, is by Airsupply. The band.” Bill explained haltingly.

It was a lot for the normally monosyllabic Bill to say, but the continuation of deep confusion on Clint’s everything must have prompted it.

“Don’t know it.” Clint shrugged and waved lazily at his hearing-aid.

“But you… Whatever man.” Bill left him to it, glaring mildly over his shoulder at him as if it was Clint’s fault he didn’t know what Bill was talking about.

People were weird.

Clint got back to work, carefully making sure he wasn’t humming out loud anymore. That conversation had been too confusing to want to go through it again with someone else.

= + =

Over the week just before Halloween, the song changed again. The music wasn’t much happier but the lyrics weren’t as lost. That didn’t mean it wasn’t still speaking to him, it had shifted from one part of his psyche to another. Calling to the part of himself that had been able to step away from the world and perform, be aware of the weight of carrying the headlining act when the rest of the performers relied on him but ignored him in equal measure. When putting one foot in front of the other was almost impossible.

Unable to sleep as the sound of laughter and drunken teenage adventures echoed across the small bay as the earlier family trick-or-treaters retreated to leave the streets to the older kids and younger adults. Sitting on the deck of the boat he took a deep, bracing breath, and sunk into the music.

“Everybody wants to be understood. Well I can hear you. Everybody wants to be loved. Don't give up, because you are loved.”

He could feel first one tear, and then another running down his cheek. Unlike last time, he didn’t want to push the song away. To run. Instead, he wanted to sink into the warmth that the voice exuded. 

“Don't give up it's just the hurt that you hide when you're lost inside I... I will be there to find you.”

Noone had ever been there, and he didn’t believe that just because his mindsong said there was now, that it was true. Angrily. He shoved out of his seat and was storming down the dock with his bow and quiver over one shoulder before the last strains of the line faded into the next one that was just as infuriating as the last.

He tried to drown it out, the draw and release of his bow normally let him remove himself. If he thought about it, he would have realised that those times he had his bow in his hand he was either completely in-sync with the music or it faded to nothing. But he wasn’t thinking about it. He had never thought about it.

His breath fell into the beat of the song, slow and smooth. The thunk of the arrow into the target, an old tree stump, punctuating the highs of the lyrics. The empathic call for belief in self and others.

A calm that he barely recognised from the first time he had picked up a bow washed over him. 

= + =

“It’s a soulmate thing.” Kate announced as she slid onto the counter top beside where he was working.

“What the hell Kate?” He yelped dropping a plate back into the sink in surprise and splashing both of them with hot, soapy water. “Aw shirt no.” He whined, annoying even himself. He pouted at her. “What’s a soulmate thing?” He asked reluctantly, it was about his least favourite topic along with STIs and anything to do with family.

“The songs you’re always humming.” She flicked a pile of suds off the metal bench at him, her aim perfect as it landed in the dead centre of his shirt.

“Hey.” He tried to wipe the soap off, but just made it worse. Deciding to ignore it, he turned his attention fully to what she was saying. “What are you talking about?”

“You hear songs right? In your head.” She shrugged as if it was completely normal, and maybe it was? Had he ever asked anyone else if they heard songs in their head that were real but would have no possible way of having heard before?

“It’s  _ super _ rare apparently, but it’s a soulmate thing. Mark or link or whatever.” She continued. “Like one in 10,000 or something.”

How was she still talking when she had already completely turned his world upside down. Soulmate? He had a soulmate out there somewhere? Holy shit.

He sat. Except there wasn’t anything behind him to catch him, and he ended up sprawled across the tiles with Kate blinking down at him, as if she couldn't quite decide whether to laugh at him, pity him, or actually feel bad that her words had sent him into an almost literal tailspin.

“What the hell are you doing Barton?” Bill groused from the doorway, glaring down at his erstwhile employee.

He tried to scramble to his feet, but the water and soap he had splashed around when Kate arrived and when he tried to use the ceramic tiles as a trampoline pulled his feet out from under him.

“He is dignity. He is grace.” Kate snarked.

“He’ll kick you in the face.” Clint warned, half meaning it.

She grinned beautifically. At Bill.

“I’m sorry Bill, I just got back into town and I was distracting him and he slipped.”

Kate was as much a part of the town as anyone who didn’t live there permanently could be. She was accepted. And her excuse was acceptable.

“Don’t do it again.” He warned before disappearing back into the bustling floor of the business.

“I’ll try.” She called at his back.

“Soulmate.” Clint said wonderingly. “Weird.”

Shrugging, she finally slipped off the bench and held a hand out to help him up. “Maybe. Could be nice too.” She rubbed a hand across a shoulder. The skin under her shirt had always been carefully covered.

He didn’t know if she had a tattoo, words, or a timer. But he was glad that she had someone out there waiting for her. She deserved it. More than he did. More than almost anyone he knew. Definitely more than him. He wasn’t even sure he wanted one, he had done fine without that promise, that anchor up until now.

Katie spent the rest of his shift sitting on the bench getting in the way as much as possible, making it almost an hour later than normal before he can leave for the night. Bill just sighing in resignation. THere wasn’t much you could do about a rogue socialite after all. 

A Soulmate. Was it something he even wanted? And even if it wasn’t, could he go through life ignoring this massive thing.

And was Kate even right? Generally he believed her, about everything. She had about ten times more education than he did and he knew it. But soulmates wasn’t algebra or government studies. It was mythic. A part of their evolution that they still had only a fingertips grasp of.

Fuck it. Thinking himself in circles wasn’t going to help anything.Tapping his phone against his thigh as he paced around and around the deck of the boat, trying to decide what to do. At worse he would be in the same position as before, adrift in the world where everyone was destined to be tied to another.

The image of kind blue eyes behind a no-nonsense facade swam to mind with the scent of saltpetre and blood in his nose. A possibility at the end of the tunnel, the redhead’s words ringing in his mind. He hadn’t realised what an impact they had had on him. Here and gone as quickly as she had been, he hadn’t consciously thought about it since. But his subconscious has been weaving it all into a fantasy ready to be presented to him the moment he let himself hope.

“Fuck it.” He muttered, tapping his code into the phone.

HIs first search found nothing, or well it found a lot. Just not the things he was looking for. Music for soulmates, and music inspired by soulmates, and music something else soulmates. But nothing about music being a soulmate mark. Or bond.

A search on obscure soulmate marks got him maybe a little closer to what he was looking for. A question on a forum lead him to another forum which lead him to a woman who was veritably shakespearian in describing how she and her soulmate came together.

Amongst the too bigs words, he managed to figure out that she had always had one song or another running through her mind, stuff she had never heard before. Feelings that weren't hers that had comforted her during a childhood and adolescence that was eerily familiar.

It was possible,

It was fucking _ likely _ . 


End file.
